Ducks and Kitchens

Even though the majority of our lilac bushes are spent, I found one bush on our property with flowers. It's a dwarf korean lilac I brought with me from my apartment. I had grown it in a container for about three years before moving. It's not doing fantastic in the ground... I might need to move it. But there were still enough flowers I could make some lilac sugar. The recipe is simple: put a layer of flowers (no stems), cover them with sugar, repeat. Let it rest for a few days, then you have lilac infused sugar to use in baking or beverages! My bush had enough flowers to make that little jar in the photo below. 

That's not much sugar to use in a baking recipe. I remembered seeing lilacs blooming in the landscaping of a few stores in town, so when I was out and about running errands, I strategically parked and brought a few blooms home with me. That was enough to make the pint jar. Now they're resting in my pantry.

The other recipe I've been meaning to try is fermented garlic in honey. I first discovered that on my friend vacation to Oregon last summer. A garlic festival featured a booth giving out samples. Another super simple recipe: peel fresh garlic cloves, cover in raw honey, let rest for about a month. You do need to give the jar a flip every day or so to keep the garlic coated; it tends to float. Make sure the mouth of the jar is loose when it's resting to allow the gasses to escape. After a few days you'll notice bubbles forming at the top or around the garlic as the good bacteria in the honey feasts on the garlic. I had to move the jar downstairs to our fruit room because the garlic smell was so prevalent in the pantry.

Our goats are doing well. They have been bothered by flies a bit; Gerda will flick her tail like a cat. She seems to be picking up habits from Mopsy. They both like to hang out on our back deck, Mopsy lounging in a deck chair, Gerda sprawled out like a cat in the sun. 

I had hoped we'd have baby ducklings on the homestead today, but unfortunately, they didn't make it. The hatchery notified us Monday morning that the batch had hatched. By the afternoon, they had a shipping label and were ready to go out. The post office called Wednesday morning to say my package had arrived. I was there within an hour. 

The postal worker brought my box to the front counter with a grim expression on her face, "I don't think they made it." We opened the box and confirmed that fact. It looked like they had been dead a while. It's pretty typical for 1-2 babies to not make it in transit, maybe they were a little weak when they hatched or they got trampled or wet or something. But for the whole batch? Something had to have happened in transport. My guess is that they were delayed somewhere along the line from the severe weather on Tuesday. 

Thankfully the company has a warranty on their animals and offers a refund or reshipment for any DOAs. They're sending a new batch next Tuesday. On the bright side, that gives me a few more days to prep their new home!